


Thresher Maws

by RainbowMagicMarker



Series: Jane Shepard [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, Destroy Ending, F/M, Gen, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Shepard Survives, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Spacer (Mass Effect), Spoilers, Thresher Maws, mature language, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowMagicMarker/pseuds/RainbowMagicMarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Shepard is a calm and collected woman on the battlefield, no matter how casual she might be aboard a ship. At least until you put a thresher maw in front of her, and everything seems to change. Eventually Garrus just has to ask why. Spoilers for all three games, post-destroy ending for ME3 where Shepard lives. Mature language and standard game violence. Confirmed FemShep/Garrus but not the focus of the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thresher Maws

"Mother _fucker_!" Shepard swore as the as the mako swerved hard to the right and the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun fire echoed through the hull. They could hear the hiss of acid eating at the kinetic barriers, and judging from Liara's eratic driving they had damaged at least one wheel. Sure it could be repaired, but only if they could stop moving, which wasn't really an option when you were fighting a thresher maw. The ground rumbled as Garrus landed a square hit and the creature retreated underground, but Shepard knew well enough that it wouldn't last. She glared at the radar, eyes straining over the blue light of the topographic display, waiting for the beast to come back in sensor range. 

There. The change in hue was almost imperceptible but it could only mean one thing. 

"Garrus! Move!" She commanded, pushing the turian's shoulder in prompting. 

Garrus glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, wary of taking his eyes off the fight."But Comma-" 

"I said _move_ Vakarian." Her tone was low and threatening and Garrus didn't need to be told twice. If she wasn't mistaken she had seen genuine fear in the turian's eyes before he shuffled aside as quick as the tight quarters would let him. Shepard settled into the weapons seat, teeth gritted as she watched and waited for the blip of the targeting software detecting movement she'd already seen. 

The maw burst through the surface, its mouth open and ready to spit more acid at the mako. It was the last roar the beast would ever give. Shepard had launched the missile not milliseconds before it opened its mouth. Silence echoed over the planets surface for a beat, and then without a whole lot of ceremony the head blew, coating the ground and mako in thresher maw blood. 

"Mother _fucker_." Jane swore to herself as she leaned back in the chair and exhaled in relief before reaching for the com switch. "Pick us up Joker." And on this rare occasion she closed the channel before Joker could come back with anything witty. There was silence among the squad until the Normandy showed up, nothing but Shepard's heavy breathing and the hiss and sizzle of acid on the shields outside. 

\---

"I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU, GRUNT." Shepard shouted from her hiding spot behind one of the pillars, glaring daggers at the Krogan ducked down beside the stairs. Garrus wasn't sure who was more likely to start spitting acid, Shepard or the thresher maw. 

"I'D LIKE TO SEE IT, BATTLEMASTER." Grunt shouted back with his heavy laugh for punctuation before popping out of his hiding to fire several shotgun rounds into the nearest tentacle. Shepard would have been glad to say more to that if another tentacle hadn't sprung up just a little too close for the woman's comfort. Steel eyes flashed behind her visor, simultaneously reading the information contained there and following the most logical course between where the tentacle had come up and where the thresher maw's head was like to come up next. 

"Now this _might_ sound crazy but I would like tp propose that we kill each other _after_ the thresher maw is dealt with." Garrus cut in much more casually than the other two, carefully lining up a shot for the maw's eyestalk. Or what he hoped was an eyestalk, or similar sensory organ. He was a turian sniper not a xenobiologist, leave that to Mordin. 

"SHUT UP GARRUS." Came the resounding chorus of his squadmates that echoed through the basin, and the turian could only roll his eyes and snort. Or would have if he weren't busy diving for cover with the commander when the maw turned its attention to his hiding spot. It was the nearest bit of rock that hadn't been shattered or dipped in acid yet. 

"We're going to fucking survive this." Shepard growled under her breath, and Garrus glanced over in time to watch her unsling the Cain from her back. Before anyone could ask what the hell she was planning or make an attempt to stop her she dove out of her cover, rolled to her feet, and charged forward to leap onto the cement wall edging the platform. 

"HEY MOTHER _FUCKER_." She swore loudly at the beast, loud enough for it to turn its attention towards her and hiss. An action that it would likely regret for a very short period of time, as the Cain in her hands hissed and spat and whirled to life, delivering it's payload straight down the maw's throat. It wasn't even a heartbeat later before the beasts head went up in smoke and blood and viscera that the turian didn't want to identify. On the one hand he wanted to rip her down from her perch and scold her for how reckless and ridiculous that had been, and on the other he wanted to rip her down from her perch and commend the effectiveness of the maneuver and probably kiss her. 

He never got the chance to do either as she stepped backwards off the ledge and landed hard on the heel of her boot, turning to face him and the cheering Grunt. "We're getting out of here. And someone is going to pay for not telling me about the _goddamn thresher maw._ " She hissed angrily, dangerously, it sent a shiver through Garrus. 

Grunt didn't even seem to notice. "Well fought battlemaster! Can't argue with a dead thresher maw!" He clapped the commander on the back, oblivious to her growls. Garrus almost felt genuinely sorry when Uvenk reared his ugly head again and Shepard blew it off when Grunt decided he wanted nothing to do with the Gatatog clan. Honestly he was surprised that she had even waited for Grunt to make the decision, but apparently even an angry Shepard could respect Krogan rights, whether she understood them or not.

\---

"You've got to be kidding me." Shepard looked like she was going to be sick, and Garrus sat beside her with a hand on her back as she hung her head, listening to the Shaman woman as she went over the plan. Lure out Kalros, let the maw deal with the destroyer, it all seemed like sound strategy to him. Of course it also meant getting out of the tanks to summon the beast on foot and hope it decided that the reaper was a better target than they were, but it was a reasonable enough risk for what was at stake. 

Predictably enough Shepard did not like it one bit. The collected and careful Commander Shepard had one thing in the universe she seemed to hate more than Reapers, and that was thresher maws. He didn't know the full story behind it, after all this time with her he knew that they had been involved in the Akuze incident, but he'd never pushed beyond that. The time just never seemed right. He wasn't going to ask now either. 

He was going to cover her and put a bullet clean through an unsuspecting Brute's spinal cord, almost severing it clean. A pity they were so thick-necked. "This is crazy!" He shouted, as much to the Reapers as to EDI and Shepard, though neither woman responded. EDI was focused on clearing Shepard a path, and he could only see the Commander through the smoke because of the assault drone orbiting her. He could certainly hear her though, swearing at Wrex through the comm he was certain. 

But even as she was triggering the second gong she was shouting over her shoulder. "Go! Get back to the trucks! I'll take care of the cure!" And despite himself all of Garrus' protests died in his throat because this was more than defending the trucks and more than providing an exit strategy, it was genuine fear behind his Commander's visor. And it killed him that the only thing that he could do was nod and follow EDI because there wasn't enough time to argue with fear and if he stopped to reassure her then he put the whole mission at risk because every second counted. She would kill him for that. 

Still, he couldn't stop himself from turning to look back at her one last time before returning to the convoy, and though she was too far away for him to hear anything, he could still imagine the breathy, whispered "Mother _fucker_." As Kalros wrapped herself around the Reaper's body and dragged it into the sand. 

\---

Why it came to him now, he couldn't say. It still wasn't the right time, the war was barely over, she had only been out of the coma for a few days and she had spoken little after making sure that the crew and the ship were okay. As okay as they could be. What happened to EDI had hit her hard. 

Maybe it wasn't appropriate, but Garrus could only stand so much silence from his talkative and companionable girlfriend, and it wasn't like there was anything that he could say about the war that could make her feel better. So instead he glanced up from the datapad to look at her, bruised and battered and tired, but awake as she stared out the hospitals window. Garrus cleared his throat and set the pad aside to look at her, head cocked slightly, until she noticed him. 

"Thresher Maws aren't actually mammalian, they're really more plant like and reproduce via spores." Shepard had closed her eyes and just listened to his voice when he started speaking, a habit she had taken up that she claimed reassured her she was alive, but by the time he reached the end of his sentence she had fixed him with a confused glare. 

"Garrus." A question and a warning rolled into one word, but the turian persisted regardless. At least she had said _something_. 

"Perhaps I've missed something about human culture, but I don't think the implication that they fuck their mothers is a very effective insult." It was a roundabout sort of way of getting to the question, but from the furrow of her brow and the pained cough that she used to cover up what might have almost been a laugh told him that she understood what he was getting at. 

"You've read my file then?" And for a heartbeat he almost thought that she might be able to forget the hospital and the war and everything if only for one conversation, until burned lungs won out and she started coughing for real, and he was at her side holding the water steady to try and soothe the pain. 

"As much as you've read mine, but I've also covered you for almost four years." He pointed out, setting the water down and ran his fingers through her hair until she seemed to calm and the shaking stopped. The burns and broken bones were healing, and she was awake which was more than some of the doctors had expected, but it was still hard to see her this bad. 

"Akuze." She coughed out eventually, when she felt like she had control over her own breathing again, "I was given a squad and sent to investigate vanished colonists." Garrus winced at the bitter laugh of irony but for once it didn't seem like Shepard noticed, or if she did she didn't care. "I was in charge of the mission; this was given to me to figure out with forty nine marines for support. The settlement was intact, but empty. We stayed for the night, looking things over, trying to find clues. Eventually I gave leave to rest; we'd venture into the wilderness to look for signs when the sun came up." She tried to shake her head but winced instantly in pain. "They're deathly silent for such huge monsters. I never did get a good count of how many there were, enough that the acid coated the settlement, leaked through everything. I hadn't been able to sleep." She stopped to cough again, and reach for a drink, though she seemed to have it under control enough not to need the turian's help holding it. 

"So you paced." Even before their relationship he'd found her in the mess hall at odd hours because she couldn't sleep. 

"Yeah. I was pacing just out of reach of the settlement, hoping I might find some kind of lead we could follow when there was more light. I came back when the rumbling started but." She frowned. 

"But you can't outrun a thresher maw." He offered, and she nodded again. 

"I radioed for evac and booked it back to camp but I couldn't even reach the buildings, the acid was too thick and I wasn't suitably armed or armored. Rookie mistake. Stupid." He could hear the frustration in her voice, "There was movement, too small to be a thresher maw. It was Corporal Lazzari. Undisciplined but he had potential, he'd been on watch. The acid only hit half of him, ate right through his spinal cord. Wasn't enough medi-gel in the galaxy for that. Last thing he said before I put a bullet in him was _kill those motherfuckers for me_." And after that it just stuck, every maw, every kill, it was just habit at that point to tell them who exactly wanted them dead. Beyond that mission she had no particular attachment to the kid, he was just another soldier, but those words stuck with her through her entire career. 

"What happened after?" He'd heard of Akuze, knew of the deaths there and Shepards connection, knew the colony considered her a hero even if the woman didn't think she deserved it. Knew she'd never go back to Akuze after all that, just as much as he was loathe to get too close to Omega without a damn good reason. 

Jane reached up and tugged at the chain around her neck, holding it out to drop in Garrus' open hand. He looked down at the dog tags, with all her information on them, and on the back stamped and sealed in black and red was the N7 logo. 

"Forty nine men died and I got a damn promotion." 

For a long moment Garrus considered the dog tags in silence, there was no doubt to him that if any human deserved the designation it was Commander Jane Shepard, but he could understand why she sounded a little bit bitter about it now. Before he could think of anything more to say she was interrupting his thoughts. 

"Now stop asking ridiculous questions and find me a nurse before I scratch off what little skin I have left. I can't take the _itching_ anymore." Commander Jane Shepard, hero of the citadel, savior of the galaxy, willpower broken by some healing scabs.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing fic again is kind of weird, but I've really been enjoying it! So have another piece of Jane Shepard's history, and as always thanks to my girlfriend for encouraging and enabling my inability to stop obsessing about this game and everyone in it.


End file.
